More people were without Atlanta careers during February.

Georgia’s unemployment rate came in at 9.3 percent during February, according to the state Department of Labor, up from 8.6 during January and more than double the 4.1 percent unemployment rate the state saw in 2008. Of the state’s 159 counties, 87 have unemployment rates of 10 percent or more, while 32 counties have unemployment rates of at least 9 percent.

“The latest local unemployment rates reflect the severity of the ongoing recession in Georgia,” State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said in an article by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Dalton area has the worst unemployment rate, which reached 12.9 percent during February, up from 11.9 percent during January and up from 6.1 percent during 2008. The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta area’s unemployment rate increased from 8.6 percent to 9.3 percent during February, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During February, the Atlanta area had a total non-farm employment of 2,332,700 workers, down from 2,341,500 workers during January and a 4.6 percent decrease from last year.

The industries that saw an over-the-year decrease in jobs were:

• mining and lodging by 16.7 percent
• construction by 16 percent
• manufacturing by 10.2 percent
• trade, transportation and utilities by 5.3 percent
• information by 3.1 percent
• financial activities by 5.3 percent
• professional and business services by 7.4 percent
• leisure and hospitality by 2.7 percent
• other services by 1.4 percent

The only industries that saw an over-the-year increase in employment during February were education and health services by 1.7 percent and government by .6 percent.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 am and is filed under jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.